It was a dire development for Cersei in an episode that, Tyrion’s long-awaited meeting with Daenerys Targaryen aside, perhaps, mostly kept the desperate vibe going from last week. Things stayed awful in Winterfell. Stannis pondered an act of mind-bending cruelty. Samwell Tarly took a vicious beating from a couple of dirtbag knights before Ghost got his back.

But first, back to King’s Landing, where the Sparrows’ morality campaign claimed its own instigator on Sunday. We joked last week about Cersei jerking around Littlefinger, summoning him 1,000 miles for what amounted to a few minutes of conversation. Turns out she would’ve been better off sticking with raven Skype — once again, as with their undoing of the wretched King Joffrey, Littlefinger and Lady Olenna brought down a Lannister. (Yes, I realize Joffrey and Cersei are technically Baratheons, but c’mon.)

Olenna and Littlefinger’s fateful meeting in the latter’s “broken little flesh market” was but one domino in a chain Cersei herself sent toppling weeks ago, when spite and fear sparked her devil’s bargain with a holy man. Her imprisonment made it three-for-three in the Lannister incarceration department — she, Jaime and Tyrion are each in some sort of captivity at this point. Nice job on that whole legacy thing, Tywin. Your kids are doing even greater things with the name than you’d hoped.

Actually, each of Tywin’s children takes key traits from him. Jaime inherited his battlefield valor; Cersei his ruthlessness. Tyrion got the smarts, which have been keeping him alive throughout his great Essos adventure.

But what they each lack, in the manner of pampered rich kids in every realm, is his discipline. Or any discipline, really, whether you’re talking about Tyrion’s self-destructive craving for wine or Jaime and Cersei’s for each other. Cersei slammed Jaime a few weeks back for his tendency to act without thinking, but isn’t what she did, in arming the Sparrows, a version of the same thing? She thought as far as she needed to figure out a way to thwart Margaery and then heedlessly pulled the trigger.

Now I’d assumed that she was mostly driven by her own sense of malice toward Margaery and self-preservation. (Tommen was making noise about shunting her off to Casterly Rock, remember.) But didn’t that scene with the boy-king make it seem a little more complicated than that? Clearly Cersei wants to protect her own position, but she also knows that king or not, her son is a lamb among the wolves of the capital, starting with his power-hungry queen. Lena Headey, who has been great all season, was tremendous again as a mother desperate to protect the last pieces of family she has left.

No matter who or how strong you are, Cersei told Tommen, “sooner or later you’ll face circumstances beyond your control.” The irony, of course, is that she didn’t realize at the time how little control she had over her own circumstances. And the sobering thing for her, aside from a presumed separation from her morning wine, is that her callow little lamb is pretty much the only ally she has left.

Sunday’s other big moment involved Tyrion, the “gift” of the episode title, whose long-awaited meeting with Daenerys represents (I think) the first time the Dragon Queen has directly encountered a member of the main Westeros faction of this story. (I’m not counting Jorah or Barristan.) So that’s something!

We’ve been waiting at least two seasons for these two branches to overlap in some way, so we probably shouldn’t dwell on the implausible string of coincidences that landed Tyrion in front of Khaleesi.

Instead, let’s jump straight into rank speculation: Any theories about their shared destiny? With Barristan’s death, will Tyrion become Dany’s new adviser and put the kibosh on this silly marriage to Hizdahr? Will he sort out the Harpys? Become a mentor to Grey Worm? Ride a dragon? What?

Really, I’m up for anything. Please share your theories in the comments but refrain from posting book spoilers, if those even apply anymore. (I haven’t read them so am never sure what’s adapted and what’s original to the show at this point.)

Meanwhile – sigh — over in Winterfell…

Anyone hoping for the redemption of Reek will have to wait another week, at least. Ramsay’s rape of Sansa last week seemed like it might shock the former Theon into reclaiming his humanity. It didn’t — he rewarded Sansa’s cry for help by ratting her out to her new husband. If things haven’t gotten better for Sansa — and they haven’t — they’ve gotten much worse for that sympathetic and now freshly flayed Northern maid.

So another week, another act of degradation by Ramsay. I still suspect Theon will come around eventually, but I’m hoping we don’t have to endure much more Ramsay being Ramsay before it finally happens.

Elsewhere in the North, Melisandre, that fount of womb-smoke and political sorcery, made her most terrible suggestion yet, advising Stannis to sacrifice his daughter Shireen to ensure good fortune on the battlefield.

This season has gone a long way toward rehabilitating Stannis’s dreary image, most movingly in a scene a few weeks ago that made him a front-runner for the best father in Westeros. (A low bar, admittedly.) Could all of that have been mere setup for one of this show’s most treacherous turns yet? (A high bar, conversely, and getting higher by the week.) I can’t see it happening, for the record. But I do wonder if the suggestion marks the beginning of a division between Stannis and his red priestess.

Over in Dorne, we got more serenading from the former half of Robson & Jerome. Those who wondered if that cut to Bronn’s arm might lead to something worse were validated this week, as we learned that Tyene had, in fact, used some sort of lethal blade poison that is magically activated by the exposure of her breasts. The deadly combo brought Bronn nearly to his end, but Tyene was just messing with him. She gave him the antidote just in time.

In a similar fashion, it feels like the writers are messing with us, toying with both our anxieties about our beloved Bronn’s potential demise and our flagging hopes that the Sand Snakes will amount to something interesting. There are three weeks left, I guess, so we’ll see.

A few thoughts while we thank our lucky wolves

• For a second I was afraid Gilly was going to be the latest rape victim on this show, but good news: Sam was just beaten to within an inch of his life. That was it. It was an uncomfortable scene all around, one that probably portends an unpleasant stint for Sam and Gilly now that their protector, Jon Snow, is off on his way to Hardhome. Keep your enemies close and your direwolves closer.

• Well, maybe not totally unpleasant. Congrats to the happy couple.

• To paraphrase Chekhov, if you show us a dragonglass dagger it absolutely must end up in a White Walker before the season’s over.

• “You had more hair,” Myrcella tells “Uncle” Jaime in Dorne. “And more hands,” he said. The hand jokes are sort of cheap and easy but I still enjoy them.

• “All rulers are either butchers or meat.”

• “Spare me the homilies. I can smell a fraud from a mile away,” Lady Olenna told the High Sparrow, speaking for most of us. “You are the few,” he said. “We are the many, and when the many stop fearing the few.…” Homilies have power when they’re backed by armed zealots, in other words. That was a delightful scene between Diana Rigg and Jonathan Pryce, two veteran English performers who have probably forgotten more about acting than I’ve ever known about anything.

• What do you think? Is the High Sparrow a phony? How will Cersei get out of this one? And what’s Littlefinger’s angle on all this? Please fire away in the comments.